


She

by Purplehuntress3



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Hanahaki Disease, mostly hurt but then soft at the end, really flowery writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 19:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17586677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purplehuntress3/pseuds/Purplehuntress3
Summary: And she smells like lemongrass and sleepShe tastes like apple juice and peachOh you would find her in a Polaroid pictureAnd she means everything to me~~~Beau falls in love. And it hurts.





	She

**Author's Note:**

  * For [byzantiine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantiine/gifts).



> soooooooo I saw this art https://twitter.com/pherredraws/status/1089996931475087367?s=19 and immediately went and listened to the song She by Dodie and... this is what happened. 
> 
> this is beta'd but I also wrote this at midnight last night so hopefully my beta meg caught all my mistakes!

When Beau had started coughing up flowers, she thought she was cursed. She scrambled from the bed she shared with Jester ( _ only shared, it was cheaper, that was it, nothing more _ ) and ran to Caleb, opening her hands and letting the sunflower petals fall to his bed as Nott threatened her with a crossbow. 

Caleb did not pity people, but his eyes were full of it that day. 

~~~

When Jester laughed, it got harder for Beau to breathe. 

At first, she always thought it was just a gut reaction. How many times had Beau been laughed at as a kid? The other children, on the rare occasions she would see them, would laugh and point and call her  _ weird.  _ Weird how she liked her hair short and kept cutting it even though her mother scolded her. Weird how she liked to punch her feelings out rather than talk. Just weird. She knew Jester was never laughing at her; she laughed at everything, but not  _ her. _ And yet, that's what she pinned it too, a gut reaction. 

Now, when she laughed, she knew the real reason why she couldn’t breathe except now-now it was a bit more real. 

~~~ 

_ Caleb picked a petal, soft and smooth like it didn’t just come from Beau’s lungs.  _

_ “Oh Beauregard,” he said softly, “you have been cursed with the one incurable thing.” and his eyes went distant, like when he’s remembering his past, except this time with a bittersweet smile.  _

_ “You have been cursed with love. Unrequited Love.”  _

~~~

When Jester danced, she did it like the world wasn’t watching. She moved with every part of her body, her eyes closed as she just lost herself to the music. She danced alone, but she didn’t mind, she just smiled as she twirled her dress. She danced like the world revolved around her. Like the sun.

And Beau, like a sunflower, will move her head just to bask in her light. 

~~~

_ “Do you want to have a sleepover, Jester?” Nott asked, and then whisked Jester away in a bundle of laughter. A cough tried to escape her lips, but she forced it down, the other’s couldn’t know about this.  _

_ But hiding from a firbolg who knows all was difficult.  _

_ “Are you alright, miss Beau?” he asked, raising his furred hand to her forehead.  _

_ “Nothing wrong at all.” she knew he knew she was lying, but right now she didn’t care. She’s a liar, the group knew that. She turned to Caleb, “Can I stay with you tonight?” he nodded like they hadn’t already arranged it.  _

_ And as Jester’s laughter echoed through the walls of the inn, Beau heaved sunflowers.  _

~~~

“Every flower has a meaning,” Jester said to Nott, in the back of the cart one day. She was slowly weaving flowers into the goblin’s hair, a tradition between the two since the dragon fight. “Like- a red rose is an expression of love, but a yellow rose suggests friendship. You can even swear at people with flowers, it’s pretty fun.” 

“What about sunflowers?” said the little, meddling goblin.

“Oh well, they usually mean something like loyalty, long life, and usually about platonic love,” she said. 

_ Platonic love,  _ Beau thought,  _ is all this will ever be to her.  _

The flowers rooted deeper into her lungs.

~~~

_ “Just whatever you do, don’t cut it,” she begged Caleb one night. She was getting worse, the flowers coming up bloody now, the yellow petals stained red. Caleb had been trying everything, had spent hours in the cobalt soul looking for answers. But still came the only three options _

_ Her love. _

_ Cutting it. _

_ Or death. _

~~~

There was a moment when she considered cutting it. 

When Caleb, staring into the screaming fire that was once a man, fell to his knees. When she rushed to his side and tugged him to his feet, all she could think of was  _ what would happen if I die.  _ The other’s still didn’t know his past, and it always was her bringing him back. She was sure that if she  _ did _ die, Nott would take over, or someone else would do it that didn’t know his past. But, as she talked Caleb out of his own head, she liked to think this was their thing. In their own, fucked up Empire Kids way. 

When they returned to the group, Jester came up and hugged them both, said she was worried about Caleb. She patted both their cheeks and healed them both, smiling one of her signature smiles, before rushing off back to the group. And Beau-

Beau couldn’t breathe. But she would take that, take that over not being able to love her sun. 

~~~

_ There was a rush of just pure peace that gentle ebbed through her body as Cadeuces touched her chest. He had known something was up from the first night, and as polite as he was it was only a matter of time before he spoke up.  _

_ She smiled softly as the peace reached her mind. It was the same spell that he’d used on her in the jungle, and with his hand still on her chest, she breathed. Her smile fell as she felt the rattling again.  _

_ “There’s a more powerful spell- I know there is. My sister-” Caleb just placed his hand on Caddy’s arm and shook his head. There was an ache in the firbolg’s face, something sad and painful. She gets the feeling that, as much as he has known death, he has not lost someone he’s loved.  _

_ There’s part of her, that feels special, that she gets to be his first.  _

~~~

“Did I do something wrong?” Jester asked, barging her way into Caleb and Beau’s room one night. She knew that this would happen, ever since it became  _ Jester and Nott  _ and  _ Caleb and Beau _ . There was a cowardly part of her that would hope she’d die before this happened. Before Jester confronted her. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Jess,” Beau insisted, but the distance she kept between the two of them spoke volumes. She took a step towards the tiefling, but as she did she felt the petal’s clawing their way up her throat, mixed with the words  _ I love you _ . She swallowed the petals and the truth and took a step away. 

She saw the tears form in Jester’s eyes as she turned and left, a sob leaving her before she even made it out of the room. As the door slammed behind her, Beau fell to the floor. 

~~~

_ “You can’t tell her,” Beau cried as Caleb dragged her into the bed. “You can’t- even if she knew, I’d still die. I can’t die with her thinking this is her fault.”  _

_ And Beau cried. She cried for only the second time since she joined The Mighty Nein. The first, as she mourned Molly.  _

_ It felt right. Since she was mourning herself now.  _

~~~

Beau awoke in Jester’s arms. 

It felt wrong, but she did not move. She thought that, after all the pain life had given her, she deserved this in her final moments. The feeling of Jester’s hands in her hair as her nails stroked her fuzzy undercut. It was something they always did like this, to help Beau get to sleep. Beau shifted, and she felt  _ exhausted _ , but she had to move, just slightly, so she was lying on top of Jester. Jester liked the weight- it reminded her she was not alone. 

As she shifted her head, her cheek fell on bloodied petals. 

She opened her eyes to see a horrific painting of  _ red, _ splattered across Jester’s dress and the bed sheets. The yellow of the petals could no longer be seen, so soaked in blood. She tried to pull away, but Jester refused to let her, held her tighter. Jester tried to shush her, but all that came out was a sob, and as Beau felt the petals rattle in her chest, she felt like crying again too. 

“You- you just-” everything Jester tried to say came out broken, and Beau could not turn, did not want to see her face. She had hoped for a happier last memory of Jester, not one filled with tears. 

“It’s okay,” Beau said, and somehow her words were clearer than Jester’s. And as she spoke, more petals came tumbling out. 

“You- a few more days,” Jester begged, “and then- Yasha will be back soon,”  _ Yasha?  _ “And then-then you can tell her you love her and she loves you and I- I won’t lose you.” 

Beau struggled up, placing a hand on either side of Jester on the bed. She shook as she did, but she had to face Jester. 

“It’s- don’t worry, Jess.” with Jester’s name another petal flew out and it splattered against Jester’s cheek, stuck there by Beau’s own blood and Jester’s tears. “I-” she wanted to say it, say the truth as it tried to drag its way free. But she could not say it. Could not face the idea that Jester would blame herself in Beau’s final moments. 

In the end, Beau was a coward.

Jester was not. 

She sped forward and kissed Beau, their noses crashing as Jester was still new to this. And it was wet either from the blood or the tears, she could not tell. But it felt  _ euphoric.  _

Jester held her face in her hands. “I know you love Yasha, but I love you, and I can not watch you die. So hold on. For my useless romantic heart.” 

It felt like that same pulse of peace, spreading out from her chest. The petals dissolved and crumbled in her lungs and the feeling continued up her throat but what came out of her lips was not petals, but the truth. 

“I love you,” she whispered, and as she breathed she felt her lungs fill for the first time in  _ months _ . “I love you,” she whispered again, but her voice was getting stronger and she repeated it and repeated it like a prayer. And Beau is not someone who cries, but she cried then. And Beau is not someone who smiles, but she smiled then. 

And for the first time in her life, the sun revolved around her. 

**Author's Note:**

> ah lesbeans. comments and kudos appreciated! i might write more of these two if i have the time!


End file.
